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Sell in May and go away is an investment strategy for stocks based on a theory (sometimes known as the Halloween indicator) that the period from November to April inclusive has significantly stronger stock market growth on average than the other months. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] In such strategies, stock holdings are sold or minimized at about the start of May and the proceeds held in cash (e.g. a money market fund); stocks are bought again in the autumn, typically around Halloween. "Sell in May" can be characterized as the belief that it is better to avoid holding stock during the summer period.
Though this seasonality is often mentioned informally, it has largely been ignored in academic circles.[ citation needed ] Analysis by Bouman and Jacobsen (2002) shows that the effect has indeed occurred in 36 out of 37 countries examined, and since the 17th century (1694) in the United Kingdom. The effect is strongest in Europe. [6]
Data show that stock market returns in many countries during the May–October period are systematically negative or lower than the short-term interest rate. This appears to invalidate the efficient-market hypothesis (EMH), which predicts that any such returns (e.g., from shorting the market) would be bid away by those who accept the phenomenon. Alternative causes include small sample size or time variation in expected stock market returns. EMH predicts that stock market returns should not be predictably lower than the short-term interest rate (risk free rate).
Popular media consider this phenomenon each May, generally rejecting it. However, the effect has been strongly present in most developed markets (including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Japan, and most European countries).
Maberly and Pierce extended the data to April 2003 and tested the strategy for April 1982 through April 2003 except for two months, October 1987 and August 1998 (when markets crashed). They found the strategy did not work well in the time period April 1982–September 1987, November 1987–July 1998 or September 1998–April 2003. [7] Other regression models using the same data but controlling for extreme outliers found the effect to be significant. [8]
A follow-up study by Andrade, Chhaochharia and Fuerst (2012) found that the seasonal pattern persisted. In the 1998–2012 sample on average November–April they found that returns are larger than May–October returns in all 37 markets they studied. On average, the difference is equal to about 10 percentage points. The magnitude of the difference is the same in both studies. Further backtesting by Mebane Faber found the effect as early as 1950. [9]
A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks, which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include securities listed on a public stock exchange as well as stock that is only traded privately, such as shares of private companies that are sold to investors through equity crowdfunding platforms. Investments are usually made with an investment strategy in mind.
An index fund is a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to follow certain preset rules so that it can replicate the performance ("track") of a specified basket of underlying investments. While index providers often emphasize that they are for-profit organizations, index providers have the ability to act as "reluctant regulators" when determining which companies are suitable for an index. Those rules may include tracking prominent indexes like the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average or implementation rules, such as tax-management, tracking error minimization, large block trading or patient/flexible trading strategies that allow for greater tracking error but lower market impact costs. Index funds may also have rules that screen for social and sustainable criteria.
In finance, technical analysis is an analysis methodology for analysing and forecasting the direction of prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume. As a type of active management, it stands in contradiction to much of modern portfolio theory. The efficacy of technical analysis is disputed by the efficient-market hypothesis, which states that stock market prices are essentially unpredictable, and research on whether technical analysis offers any benefit has produced mixed results. It is distinguished from fundamental analysis, which considers a company's financial statements, health, and the overall state of the market and economy.
In finance, being short in an asset means investing in such a way that the investor will profit if the value of the asset falls. This is the opposite of a more conventional "long" position, where the investor will profit if the value of the asset rises.
The efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) is a hypothesis in financial economics that states that asset prices reflect all available information. A direct implication is that it is impossible to "beat the market" consistently on a risk-adjusted basis since market prices should only react to new information.
The January effect is a hypothesis that there is a seasonal anomaly in the financial market where securities' prices increase in the month of January more than in any other month. This calendar effect would create an opportunity for investors to buy stocks for lower prices before January and sell them after their value increases. As with all calendar effects, if true, it would suggest that the market is not efficient, as market efficiency would suggest that this effect should disappear.
The equity premium puzzle refers to the inability of an important class of economic models to explain the average equity risk premium (ERP) provided by a diversified portfolio of equities over that of government bonds, which has been observed for more than 100 years. There is a significant disparity between returns produced by stocks compared to returns produced by government treasury bills. The equity premium puzzle addresses the difficulty in understanding and explaining this disparity. This disparity is calculated using the equity risk premium:
Market timing is the strategy of making buying or selling decisions of financial assets by attempting to predict future market price movements. The prediction may be based on an outlook of market or economic conditions resulting from technical or fundamental analysis. This is an investment strategy based on the outlook for an aggregate market rather than for a particular financial asset.
Long/short equity is an investment strategy generally associated with hedge funds. It involves buying equities that are expected to increase in value and selling short equities that are expected to decrease in value. This is different from the risk reversal strategies where investors will simultaneously buy a call option and sell a put option to simulate being long in a stock.
Active management is an approach to investing. In an actively managed portfolio of investments, the investor selects the investments that make up the portfolio. Active management is often compared to passive management or index investing.
Buy and hold, also called position trading, is an investment strategy whereby an investor buys financial assets or non-financial assets such as real estate, to hold them long term, with the goal of realizing price appreciation, despite volatility.
A stock trader or equity trader or share trader, also called a stock investor, is a person or company involved in trading equity securities and attempting to profit from the purchase and sale of those securities. Stock traders may be an investor, agent, hedger, arbitrageur, speculator, or stockbroker. Such equity trading in large publicly traded companies may be through a stock exchange. Stock shares in smaller public companies may be bought and sold in over-the-counter (OTC) markets or in some instances in equity crowdfunding platforms.
Momentum investing is a system of buying stocks or other securities that have had high returns over the past three to twelve months, and selling those that have had poor returns over the same period.
A calendar effect is any market anomaly, different behaviour of stock markets, or economic effect which appears to be related to the calendar, such as the day of the week, time of the month, time of the year, time within the U.S. presidential cycle, decade within the century, etc...
Tactical asset allocation (TAA) is a dynamic investment strategy that actively adjusts a portfolio's asset allocation. The goal of a TAA strategy is to improve the risk-adjusted returns of passive management investing.
There are several concepts of efficiency for a financial market. The most widely discussed is informational or price efficiency, which is a measure of how quickly and completely the price of a single asset reflects available information about the asset's value. Other concepts include functional/operational efficiency, which is inversely related to the costs that investors bear for making transactions, and allocative efficiency, which is a measure of how far a market channels funds from ultimate lenders to ultimate borrowers in such a way that the funds are used in the most productive manner.
In finance, volatility is the degree of variation of a trading price series over time, usually measured by the standard deviation of logarithmic returns.
Mean reversion is a financial term for the assumption that an asset's price will tend to converge to the average price over time.
Quantitative behavioral finance is a new discipline that uses mathematical and statistical methodology to understand behavioral biases in conjunction with valuation.
Stocks consist of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion to the total number of shares. This typically entitles the shareholder (stockholder) to that fraction of the company's earnings, proceeds from liquidation of assets, or voting power, often dividing these up in proportion to the amount of money each stockholder has invested. Not all stock is necessarily equal, as certain classes of stock may be issued, for example, without voting rights, with enhanced voting rights, or with a certain priority to receive profits or liquidation proceeds before or after other classes of shareholders.
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